There was mercy, though. Eventually. By the time they were there on the Spree.
‘Dad, I have to, ahm, do this for myself, you know?’ Her hand making small contrapuntal squeezes at his while she spoke. ‘Terry’s better to me than you think. You have to believe me about that and try and be civil.’ The boat kicking merrily under them for a playful moment, then pressing on.
He’d rushed into the promise, ‘I will.’ One he couldn’t keep. ‘I will. I’m sorry. I’ve been getting anxious.’ Inside a pocket of his coat there was the flinch of his phone as it gathered a text, the small noise that warned him of incoming communications. Becky glowered at the interruption and he blurted, ‘I’m not answering. I won’t. I’ll turn it off, even … if you want.’
‘Do what you like.’ She undoubtedly knew this would always drive Jon to do what she would like. ‘Dad, I don’t need the lectures about women.’
‘No. I realise. It’s presumptuous. I simply … The only country in the world where there’s a majority of women in a parliament is Rwanda. Rwanda. That’s when women get power, real power — if the men are either dead or in prison. Convicted genocidaires. A high percentage.’
‘Could we not talk about genocide.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s not that I don’t get it. And I care. And I made a donation to that place you said I should.’
‘Did you?’ Turning to look at her and realising that his expression would be this dreadful, fond open smile, this doting that probably seemed absurd both to observers and Rebecca. ‘They’re good people. The money goes where it should. If you can afford it.’
‘I gave them fifty quid — it’s not going to render me homeless. Can we just sit and enjoy this and then have lunch. Not on the boat and not in the hotel — somewhere we can relax. I’ll buy you lunch.’
‘No, I should.’
‘You paid for the holiday.’
‘And the depressing hotel.’
‘And the depressing hotel. Do you understand that I hate it when you’re sad and that I would rather you weren’t and when you volunteer for it — what am I meant to do?’
‘Nothing. You don’t … I don’t expect …’ Having to stare down at this nesting of hands at his knee — hers and his — rather than face her and become … something else she would hate because it would look like sadness, when mostly he got wet-eyed over good fortune rather than injuries and his good fortune was her and that was the issue currently in play. ‘Please let’s, yes, pick somewhere for lunch and have a nice meal before the plane and then … I really did, I really have, I really have enjoyed this time. I appreciate it.’ Nodding and breathing raggedly.
And she’d kissed him underneath his left ear, softly clumsy like a girl and this had torn his last level of restraint and made him sniff. And he was nodding and grinning and uneven in his heart while she’d released his hand — it was cold once she was as gone as gone — and she’d worked her arm in behind him, hugged his waist, and leaned her head snug to his shoulder. Berlin had progressed outside in blinks and smudges and he’d kept nodding and nodding while Rebecca fitted herself to him until they were comfortable.
He’d let his cheek drift over and away from her, find the glass and settle. And his daughter was wonderful and that was something very plain, along with how remarkable it was that two wrong parents had produced the beginnings of such a person, given her enough to build upon.
And his daughter rode a bicycle to work — cycled in London — which was reckless of her, crazy of her, and yet unpreventable.
And any slighting references to cyclists became, therefore, provocations that outstripped his ability to express outrage — an ability which had atrophied into, at most, a show of pursed lips and perhaps firm but appropriately crafted comments, delivered at apposite moments, or kept in reserve, kept in perpetual reserve.
Nonetheless, as he waited for the cab to progress from Chiswick to Westminster, Jon pictured the way he might grin as he stepped from the taxi and dragged the driver out by his lapels, ears, by something available, and punched him, threw him into the path of oncoming traffic without a helmet or relevant licence, because there was no relevant licence, you don’t need a licence to be crushed.
As he racked up another three inches towards his workplace, Jonathan Sigurdsson cleared his throat, ‘What do you reckon? Much longer?’
‘No idea, mate. Not a clue.’
‘Ah, well.’ Jon rubbed his thumb across the pads of callous he was growing on the fingertips of his left hand — small areas of invulnerability which were helping him learn to play the guitar. Rhythm and blues. He felt that was a style which might forgive his lack of skill. And his love. It was a place to indulge his love with an entity which would neither care nor take advantage.
It’s an outlet.
D7 — that’s a troubling chord to form. It makes me all thumbs and no fingers.
Done D9. I can manage that, get into it quite smoothly. Which was worth it. I think. It’s useful. Sounds useful. But putting everything together … the transitions … and by myself … I have a book, but I am by myself …
I am aware that I’m no good.
But it is an outlet.
The traffic did not move.
His phone started ringing.
09:36
IT WASN’T LOST on Meg — the humour of steering herself about from one hospital to another, her semi-regular trips. Although the Hill wasn’t really a hospital and maybe only seemed like one because of her thinking and where she was with her life just at the moment.
Where she was this morning was a genuine hospitaclass="underline" mall-style food court with a range of options, frequent opportunities for hand sanitising, slick floors that seemed to anticipate the spillage of shaming fluids. There was none of the medical smell she still expected from medical buildings: the disinfectant reek that used to set the scene so unmistakably, used to make the whole of yourself clench, even if you were healthy. Nowadays you walked into any of these places and there was only an aroma of cheap coffee and beyond that perhaps the scent of a low-class office block or a cheap hotel. The overall banality of what you were inhaling made your surroundings seem less professional and therefore more frightening. And then maybe there were traces of something nastier that you didn’t quite catch, not fully, something to do with used bedding and uncontrolled decay.
And she was frightened — more in her body than her mind, but both communicated, she couldn’t prevent it. Back and forth, they whispered, they bled.
As she’d climbed the stairs — the lifts here always seemed unclean and were too obviously big enough to contain trolleys, biers, bodies — her muscles had seemed to soften and become unhelpful.
And then there was the form to sign and the multiple confirmations of her birth-date — as if she might have changed into somebody different from one end of each corridor to the other.
In the waiting room where she finally paused were the usual telly and posters pledging to do nice things very nicely and threatening that any violence would be met with prosecution. One woman was already there with — it was only a guess — her supporting male partner. A second outpatient sat between uniformed and, most likely, less supportive female warders. It took a moment to notice the second woman was handcuffed to the warder at her left.